cookies affiliate tracking software lotto

Selecting an Affiliate Tracking Platform 

Lotto Affiliate marketing is, in essence, a straightforward process. An affiliate signs up to a lottery affiliate program, they get approved, and they start sending traffic to the lottery brand. 

When that traffics converts into paying customers for the brand, the affiliate gets paid a commission. 

Simple right?

Well, yes, it is. That is if everything works along the way. Having it all work is one reason why having the right tracking platform is so vital to a successful affiliate program.

You must ensure that the affiliate tracking software correctly tracks at all times and meets the many challenges of an ever-changing online ecosystem.

Tracking 

Accurate tracking is the most critical part of any platform. 

If an affiliate program’s chosen tracking platform fails to track the rightful sales and commissions generated by an affiliate, then the chances of retaining that affiliate and growing further revenue will be next to nil.

Affiliates have a distinct advantage over the brands that run affiliate programs, in that they can sign up and promote multiple brands at one time.

By doing so, they can see what brands perform the best in terms of the promotions and products they offer and collect data on conversations and sales and life time values. 

If you want a great understanding of your competitors, then ask affiliates, they know a lot about your competitive landscape.

Some potential tracking issues can be easily discovered by affiliates. For example, by checking the outbound click count from where they’re promoting a brand and comparing it to affiliate tracking platform reports, it’ll be obvious when something’s not right.

If the affiliate tracking software is recording clicks accurately, then that’s a good day in the office and a great starting point for affiliates to gauge if they can make money from your program.

S2S Postback

Many affiliate tracking platforms rely on cookies to track referrals sent from their affiliates. 

The cookies are stored on the computer that has clicked on a tracking link in an ad, such as a banner. 

The cookies are used by the affiliate tracking software to attribute that referral to the affiliate. A pixel is placed on the merchant side using HTML code to fire when an event happens on a web page.

This form of tracking can be less reliable than Postback. Many browsers, such as Safari, Chrome, and Firefox, are now moving away from supporting cookies due to user privacy concerns.

The alternative and more modern platforms now offer S2S Server to Server Postback. 

S2S does not use cookies; rather, the information is stored server-side. 

A tracking code is used that sends a unique click to the merchant, who then sends a Postback URL of the Click ID. 

The Click ID is unique to every person referred to. You are also able to gain more significant insights into your visitors with S2S compared to using cookies. It is even more accurate and reliable, giving both the merchant and the affiliate more precise and reliable tracking. 

Marketing Tools

While tracking is the fundamental element required in a good affiliate program, it is also essential to look at how ads are served for affiliates. 

Many affiliates in the iGaming space decide to host their own creatives rather than using the affiliate program’s code and creatives. Affiliates do not want to have scripts or iframes on their site, which could pose a security risk to their sites or affect their search engine rankings. 

The disadvantage to your affiliate program is that if a banner or promotion is updated, then it is up to the affiliate to change the creatives and link to the landing page. 

When selecting a provider for your affiliate tracking, consider how affiliates’ creatives and trackers are served and if affiliates will use the code as supplied. 

Suppose the affiliates do use the code as supplied. In that case, there are several benefits, including the ability to update both the landing page and creatives, so they update automatically changed on the affiliates’ website.

Also, look for HTML5 support so that banners can be even more dynamic and have information such as current jackpots and draw dates in the case of an online lottery affiliate program.

Reporting

Your program’s reporting gives you the data you need to examine your affiliates, such as the types of traffic they are sending and how well it performs.

Depending on how your affiliates are pushing your brands, such as SEO, PPC, and Social or App, the metrics can vary immensely. 

Even in SEO affiliates, the value and conversion rates from some terms compared to different affiliates can differ.

Affiliates who rank for your brand term and the word “lottery review” may have better conversion and life time values than an affiliate ranking for a more generic term such as “what time is the lottery draw tonight.” 

Both sets of potential players have very different agendas if they go onto the lotto site and decide to sign up and purchase.

The more easily you can dig into your affiliate traffic, the better you will understand the scope for them to send more players and help get the best conversions.

Compliance

In the online gaming space, compliance has become one of the most important aspects of a good affiliate program. 

Not only are you relying on affiliates to protect your brand image, but in the online lottery space, there are strict advertising rules that must be adhered to meet both license and adverting guidelines.

As an example, affiliates must clearly display any age restrictions that may apply and not target problem gamblers.

A good affiliate tracking platform designed for the iGaming space will help you manage the affiliate program’s compliance aspect. 

This, in part, can be achieved by checking referral traffic that may need to match a referral URL to be counted in the reports.

Other tools, such as KYC documentation storage, is a system that makes affiliates regularly agree to any new terms of the program and can be a huge time saver.

In Summary

A good affiliate tracking platform will have many great features, but as long as the tracking is fundamentally accurate, it’s the best starting place for both lotto affiliates and merchants. 


 

 

 

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